Wednesday, May 25, 2011

The closest I've been to a tornado is watching the tornado coverage on CNN and that's close enough for me. One reporter was saying that if an F4 tornado hit a mile away from a town that it hit, the tornado wouldn't be newsworthy. But then with 800 tornadoes in the past few months, the odds increase that populated areas will be hit. And although the duration that a tornado whirls over one spot on the ground or a building is just for a few minutes, well, you've seen those cars piled upon one another. That's awesome power. Another reporter on the scene signed off with a, "The only positive thing I can say about the situation is that it's summer....and it's hurricane season."

By CHRISTINA REXRODE | Huffington Post

NEW YORK -- People are paying more to fuel up these days – on coffee.

Coffee price increases have outpaced even the hike in gasoline prices the past year. A one-pound can of ground coffee sold for $5.10 in April, up 40 percent from $3.64 the year before, according to the Department of Labor. By comparison, a gallon of regular gasoline cost $3.83 on average on Tuesday, up 37 percent from a year earlier.

To answer that, we need to figure out if tattoos can be protected by copyright at all — a question no court (until now), to my knowledge, has ever confronted. The Copyright Act sets out the requirements for copyright protection: you have to have an “original work of authorship,” and it must be “fixed in a tangible medium of expression.” There’s not much question that Whitmill’s design is an “original work of authorship” — if it were painted on canvas, for instance, there’s no doubt that it would receive copyright protection. The harder question is whether Mike Tyson’s face is a “tangible medium of expression.”

Michael Levine | Honolulu Civil Beat on 12/23/2010

....Across the state, the number of Hawaii-born residents rose from 689,056 in the 2000 Census to 691,499 in the American Community Survey, an increase of 2,443 [in 10-years!]. The vast majority of new citizens are from outside the islands.

Monday, May 23, 2011

My brand new charger takes a mere 15-minutes to charge up 2 batteries, plus it holds 4 batteries. If you charge 4 batteries all at the same time, then it takes 30-minutes to charge the 4 batteries. That's tonight's math lesson. Anyways my old rechargeable batteries weren't able to hold a a charge after 2 years of service. Charge up the old batteries, load the batteries into my camera, tug it along, a humpback whale does a fluke on the Ala Wai canal, and my camera's screen flashes, "need new batteries," or something to that effect. $40-something at Long's Drugs (CVS). No Hawaii Five-O tonight. Last week Monday was the season finale. Lame plot. The governor gets shot and maki, die, dead. In the episode it's revealed that the governor is the dark force from which all things evil emanates. The most powerful person in the chain of command turns out to be the villain is as much a surprise as the butler did it, with a double entendre that the main boy is forced to go rouge, give me a break. Albeit, the world's not gonna end. I'm glad they blew up Kelly Who. She must have badgered the producers to be a regular cast member, and that was her answer, rsvp. You never use to see Kelly Who return home to the islands on her own volition. Then Hawaii Five-O gets remaked and she comes on like our long lost local sista. Kaboom.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Via PBS, broadband speed in the Netherlands is 20 times faster than US broadband. In Britain, monthly rates for Internet service is between $12-$6.00 ($40/month average, US). Britain has something like 400 Internet service providers. The post office sells Internet service. The electric company sells Internet service, etc.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Does things work now? Apparently, it does. Sounds like I'm talking to myself. In the process, comments were also wiped out via the same glitch, although the notice below from Blogger's own website issued the status as a less acute, "temporary removed."

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Sunday, May 8, 2011

My favorite breakfast cereal is Kellogg's® Raisin Bran. According to the back of the box Kellogg's now produces two other versions of Raisin Bran. "Extra," with nuts and cranberries, etc., and "Crunch," with honey oat clusters. For the record, I'm sticking with the original Raisin Bran. I don't know what the marketing strategy is behind producing multiple versions, flavors, of the same food product but it seems to be a trend on the grocery store shelves. With bacon. With wasabi. Potato chips are the most notorious in this genre.

Kellogg's® Frosted Flakes also happened to be on sale so I bought two boxes of the Frosted Flakes to store away in the pantry, and double the possibility of instantly winning "FREE breakfast for a year." Need I mention that I neglected to reach for that Snicker bar in the process, and as things would have it, no prize nay mega lottery. But that's how it is on some days.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Boy, a second after I posted the pic above, there was this huge boom. My computer went OFF than back ON. Am I glad that I plugged everything into a surge protector strip. Then the car alarms went off on the street below. You could hear the paddlers below yell out a huge whoa.